OnlineNW Graduates to 10Gig with ADTRAN to Reimagine Education

Service provider turns up first West Coast 10Gig community to support agile learning environment for next generation of thinkers, creators and developers

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 26, 2016-- ADTRAN®, Inc., (NASDAQ:ADTN), a leading provider of next-generation open networking solutions, today announced OnlineNW has turned up 10 Gigabit (10GB) broadband service for Dayton, Ore. – making it the first 10GB city on the West Coast. The community is using this ultra-fast broadband capability to build an innovation ecosystem across schools, non-profit organizations, local businesses and government entities. Together, this ecosystem is focusing on educating Dayton’s future entrepreneurs and lays the foundation for tomorrow’s economic development.

Like many rural towns across America, Dayton struggled to keep or attract the young professionals who are essential for providing the next-generation of innovation needed for the area’s growing agricultural technology (AgTech) industry. To address this challenge, OnlineNW teamed up with Innovate Oregon and the Dayton school district to create Innovate Dayton – a program focused on fostering change and reimagining how local teachers educate and local students learn via creative problem solving and critical thinking. The result has been the development of an agile learning environment supplemented by real-world experience and community engagement opportunities for Dayton students from local companies and wineries.

“We recognized that there was a gaping disconnect between the technological innovations of today and how and what students were learning and being exposed to in their educational environments. We weren’t providing our students with the fuel and resources to be tomorrow’s technology leaders that Dayton’s economic community was missing,” said Thompson Morrison, innovation evangelist for Innovate Oregon. “By creating a unique partnership between Dayton’s community and its school system, we were able to create an environment where each entity poured back into the other equally. A critical component to the success of the program was the broadband connectivity we were able to provide with ADTRAN’s platform. The unprecedented broadband connectivity we can offer is enabling us to build our talent infrastructure that ultimately unleashes our economic potential.”

While the 10GB network infrastructure was initially created to support the Innovate Dayton effort in the schools, OnlineNW also saw a unique opportunity to enable Gigabit broadband service for residents and local businesses via ADTRAN’s 10G PON solution. OnlineNW has forged a public/private partnership with the school that includes a revenue sharing agreement to support student-led community development projects, like working with the town’s world famous vineyards and wineries on technology-centric testing and development. This strategic relationship was a catalyst to enabling ultra-fast broadband for the community as a whole.

“OnlineNW took a collaborative, grassroots approach to solve a problem for Dayton that is enabling the entire community to re-imagine what is possible for future economic and educational development. Gigabit broadband is giving rural towns across the country the opportunity to innovate for their community, residents and businesses in a way they have not been able to do before,” said Mitch Fleming, vice president, service provider sales, ADTRAN. “Dayton is proof that geographic location is no longer a barrier to what a community can accomplish with passion, creative thinking and Gigabit broadband.”

For more information about ADTRAN’s Enabling Communities, Connecting Lives program - read more.

About ADTRAN

ADTRAN, Inc. is a leading global provider of networking and communications equipment. ADTRAN’s products enable voice, data, video and Internet communications across a variety of network infrastructures. ADTRAN solutions are currently in use by service providers, private enterprises, government organizations, and millions of individual users worldwide. For more information, please visit www.adtran.com.